Posted on 05/29/2021 6:59:43 AM PDT by ReaganGeneration2
Approximately 96 COVID-19 vaccines are at various stages of clinical development. At present, we have the interim results of four studies published in scientific journals (on the Pfizer–BioNTech BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine, the Moderna–US National Institutes of Health [NIH] mRNA-1273 vaccine, the AstraZeneca– Oxford ChAdOx1 nCov-19 vaccine, and the Gamaleya GamCovidVac [Sputnik V] vaccine) and three studies through the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) briefing documents (on the Pfizer–BioNTech,6 Moderna–NIH, and Johnson & Johnson [J&J] Ad26. COV2.S vaccines). Furthermore, excerpts of these results have been widely communicated and debated through press releases and media, sometimes in misleading ways. Although attention has focused on vaccine efficacy and comparing the reduction of the number of symptomatic cases, fully understanding the efficacy and effectiveness of vaccines is less straightforward than it might seem. Depending on how the effect size is expressed, a quite different picture might emerge.
(Excerpt) Read more at thelancet.com ...
Peer reviewed? Where are the review comments?
Pieces published in medical journals are peer reviewed and approved before publication. That’s how it worked for hundreds of years, and how it still works, believe it or not.
No online comments section required.
>>Also measures how ineffective the Vaccine has been in Israel.
Israel has, or is just about to, dropped all covid related restrictions, has reduced daily peak cases from 10,000 per day in January to just a small handful most recently -
How does this rate as ‘ineffective’?
“…measures how ineffective the Vaccine has been in Israel.”
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Really? This is what you gathered from all the smoke being blown?
Don’t you believe peer reviewed science? Do you honestly think all these doctors and scientists are lying? Are you one of those QAnon conspiracy theorists?
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)00119-1/fulltext
Hubby published many peer-reviewed docs in Physics. As I recall, the comments from peers are PRE-publication. At least that’s how it happened then.
Peer-reviewed science?
Like the peer-reviewed science that proves man-made climate change?
But they also acknowledge that for any individual making the decision, they need to look at ARR.
That's because SCIENCE ISNT MATH..
It never was.
And it sure isn't now.
Remember how science said ulcers were induced chiefly by stress or spicy food? It turns out, they are induced chiefly by bacteria. Whoops.
The history of science is littered with "no wait....that's wrong...THIS is right..." going through the rinse and repeat cycle endlessly.
And that's ok. Inquiry and challenge and "being a science heretic" is, in many ways, how mankind learns more and can fix more problems.
But science isn't math. Your checking account balance is the sum of deposits less sum of withdrawals. Always. Forever.
The problem arises when people try to equate science with math...usually they call it "settled science." And, to be sure, robust inquiry and disciplined application of the scientific method usually gives you clear and distinct results. Then, science is settled...until we get new data or better techniques, and then we get "wait a minute..".
For example, there was a most excellent article posted on how "settled science" wasn't so settled, wherein:
seems that Earth has been misplaced. According to a new map of the Milky Way galaxy, the Solar System's position isn't where we thought it was. Not only is it closer to the galactic centre - and the supermassive hole therein, Sagittarius A* - it's orbiting at a faster clip.
It further noted other "errors" in SCIENCE:
A good recent example of this is the red giant star Betelgeuse, which turned out to be closer to Earth than previous measurements suggested. This means that it's neither as large nor as bright as we thought. Another is the object CK Vulpeculae, a star that exploded 350 years ago. It's actually much farther away, which means that the explosion was brighter and more energetic, and requires a new explanation, since previous analyses were performed under the assumption it was relatively low energy
The other problem arises when Certain Powers work overtime to suppress assiduous inquiry. Which, is what we have today as well. It's a bad double whammy.
In the interest of full disclosure, my "science isn't math" quote came from a recent post on social sciences, that featured this brilliant give and take involving a Harvard faculty member critical of Charles Murray from the original article, that is worth reprinting - it is with regard to the "certainty of SCIENCE":
"so why should we let someone teach social science that we know to be wrong in our social science courses?"
Because it is possible that you are wrong.
Science is not mathematics. Newtonian physics was wrong. And social science is a further three rungs down in certainty from science.
Your level of certainty and arrogance about what can be said, and probably thought, smacks of religion, and not science. This is a political religion that permeates academia at the moment. And which I am fairly sure you will swear does not infect you, while the rest of us can see the symptoms quite plainly.
Only religions ban heretics from speaking because of the wrong-think they might cause. Real science loves a good heretic. In fact, honestly, the entire goal of science is to be a heretic. To have an idea that no other person ever had. Science is the pretty much the antithesis of your thought-police approach.
And most of academia used to be the antithesis of your thought police approach as well, until the religion of leftism took it over, with the direct help of people like you.
The problem arises when people try to equate science with math...usually they call it “settled science.”
The issue of RRR vs ARR also arises in evaluating the efficacy of, for example, random workplace drug testing. The baseline risk matters. Testing efficacy will vary widely between, say, a population of accountants and a population of restaurant workers.
In the vaccine example, the population receiving the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines apparently has a substantially different baseline risk for contracting Covid-19 than does the population receiving the AZ and J&J vaccines.
Yes, if there is a flaw in anything, there is a flaw in everything...QED /s
Statistics is an immensely valuable and unreasonably denigrated field. It tells us what is true of us as a group, and defies panic-creating anecdotal evidence about individuals, such as the graphic tales that appear on some sites daily.
Books like “How to Lie with Statistics” have somehow created an erroneous reputation, but all they show is misuse of statistics, not use of statistics.
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